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White Paper and Draft Bill

The Govermment’s White Paper and House of Lords Reform Draft Bill got a poor reception in both Houses. The media have been underwhelmed by the Government’s proposals and decided that they did not really merit being treated as headline news. This is hardly surprising given that the White Paper really added little to what had been covered in previous White Papers on the subject and left a great deal open to further discussion.

One fundamental problem is that the White Paper treats the House of Lords as existing in some political vacuum, capable of carrying on as now – same powers, essentially same relationship with the Commons – regardless of any change in how its membership is selected. The current powers and conventions of the House derive from the fact that the second chamber is unelected. As the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the Commons noted in its report last week, Seminar on the House of Lords: Outcomes, ‘The existing conventions governing relations between the two Houses will not survive in their current form if the Upper House is given democratic legitimacy’.

It is also difficult to see an elected House being content with the powers that derive from an unelected House. The Parliament Act 1911 was enacted precisely for the purpose of ensuring the primacy of the elected House over the unelected House. If the second chamber is elected, then the rationale for the Parliament Act disappears. As I pointed out to the Deputy Prime Minister when he was before the Constitution Committee yesterday, an elected second chamber may not seek to be co-equal with the first chamber, but it can demand more powers than those held by the present House.

There may be a case for the Commons not having primacy, but if the general view is that it should retain the primacy that it presently has, then these proposals are going to be difficult to sustain. Even one Liberal Democrat supporter of an elected chamber came up to me after the statement on Tuesday to declare: ‘What a dog’s breakfast’.

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4 comments for “White Paper and Draft Bill”

Lord Norton, experts on the constitution like you must fight these absurd suggestions tooth and nail and stop our constitution from being even more vandalised.

milesjsd

24/05/2011 at 9:19 pm

(ahem !)

maybe the Constitution itself allows and protects some kinds of “vandalism” ?

e.g. the wholesale shovelling of UN WHO Primary Health Care Declaration under the then already obsolescent Primary Medical Care “wet-blanket”:

both BMA and Governments are still getting away with that one.

2119 24 JSDM

Matt

19/05/2011 at 8:17 pm

To my mind, it is a good thing if the executive is going to have more of a fight on its hands, to get its legislation through both houses. The Parliament Act is already too blunt an instrument, anyway. It would be better, over time, for the Commons to enjoy a modified form of primacy, whereby they have to use an ‘over-ride’ mechanism of some sort, after a delay ~ be it a combined vote of both houses, a two-thirds ‘aye’ of the whole Commons, a secret-ballot simple-majority ‘aye’ of Commons, or a referendum on the question of the bill passsing into law (they can try them all if they like).

Gareth Howell

20/05/2011 at 2:28 pm

I don’t know about a dog’s breakfast but if that is so then a closer inspection of the Parliament act would have to be made, if what the noble lord Norton says, is so.

Suggesting that the primacy of the Commons might be in question is just ridiculous.

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About the Author

Lord Norton

…was appointed Professor of Government at the University of Hull in 1986 at the age of 35. In 1992 he also became Director of the Centre for Legislative Studies. In 1998 he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Norton of Louth. He chaired the Conservative Party’s Commission to Strengthen Parliament. He is co-chair of the Parliamentary University Group and chair of the Commission on Higher Education.
From 2001 to 2004 he was Chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution. He is the author or editor of 32 books. He has been described in 'The House Magazine' as "our greatest living expert on Parliament".